Generating positive ROI in cannabis eCommerce in 8 months

Sava is a cannabis eCommerce startup based in the Bay Area. They scour the world of cannabis for the highest quality goods and hand-select only the finest products, tailored to real-life needs ranging from daily relaxation to pain relief. To extend their reach and bring more awareness to the San Francisco market, Sava collaborated with us to establish their brand in Google's search results and generate organically driven leads.

The cannabis industry has exploded in response to expanding legalization and a flood of investor capital, and the competition Sava faces is fierce. It also operates in a legal gray area: though legal in many states, cannabis is still federally illegal, and major platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Google classify it as a dangerous substance and do not allow ads. Sava cannot advertise, but they can grow organically by ranking at the top of Google for cannabis-related products and information. With that in mind, we devised a comprehensive strategy to attract people searching for products and answers, and to deliver new high-quality leads by ranking for valuable commercial keywords.

From the start we knew this would be a thrilling project, whether we were finding the ideal audience, composing the finest website architecture, or crafting an engaging content strategy. We kicked off with keyword and intent research to determine the most valuable target demographic - anyone around the Bay Area, young or mature, could be the perfect market. We then built multiple engaging, informative landing pages with a brand voice that spoke directly to each audience's way of thinking. Everyone has a different relationship to cannabis - medical or recreational, new or experienced - so we created an all-encompassing content strategy to help customers navigate their own journey and inform their buying decision.

• /The cannabis edible delivery landing page brings an average of 400 new organic visitors per month. Total clicks for edible-related keywords increased 146% and impressions 108%.
• /"Buy edibles online" jumped from not ranking to a high-ranking position, bringing 339 new clicks in Q1 2022.
• /The Cannabis Gummies landing page drove a 112% increase in clicks and 109% in impressions for gummies-related keywords.
• /"CBN gummies" jumped from 23rd (page 3) to 6th (page 1): +676% clicks and +643% impressions.
• /"THC tincture" (13,200 searches/month) climbed from 6th to 2nd - clicks went from ~270/month to 1,600/month, a 492% increase.
• /Dispensary-by-city landing pages across 7 Bay Area cities: +23% total clicks, +105% impressions, doubling impressions year over year.
• /Organic traffic now accounts for 70% of total traffic, up from 65%.

Now that Sava is strongly established in Google's results, we continuously strengthen their site authority to grow brand awareness and organic traffic further. Our approach involves earning backlinks from high-quality websites and expanding content to fill any gaps, partnering with related, high-authority sites to publish relevant content that drives new visitors and increases credibility in the eyes of Google.